I’m going to kill that bastard.
Not the first time my waking thought has been along those lines. Difference is, I don’t know where I am. It’s dark enough to make me wonder if the head butt had blinded me, but I’ve been on enough ships to know the smell. It’s like an absence of...everything.
Everywhere I touch, my fingertips glide over cold metal. I’ve been laying on a grated floor so long that the bare skin of my legs and the side of my face have sensitive T and square-shaped imprints to go with my pounding headache. He couldn’t even give me a blanket.
Asshole.
I’m on Jérémie’s merchant ship. I’d bet my life on it.
There’s no vibration in the ship’s walls, and no hum to the air. We haven’t left Earth yet. My odds of escape are still good as long as I haven’t run out of time. Jérémie will need to report and verify his cargo to the authorities before getting off the ground. That will most likely include paying off some official to overlook the woman trapped on his ship. That could take hours. All I need are a few opportune seconds.
Muffled male voices travel through the walls, and I leap to my bare feet. Using the sound as it travels, I search with outstretched fingertips until I find the airtight door and test the wheel. It doesn’t budge. I’m not surprised.
“I want to see her,” a man says. His voice is more of a tenor to Jérémie’s accented bass.
“She is a dangerous criminal,” Jérémie tells him. “I cannot open that door.”
In the silence that follows, I hear nothing but my own heartbeat. I can practically hear the sweat beginning to bead at my hairline.
Finally, the man says, “Until I see her, the deal is off. If you off this planet without logging your cargo into Federation record, you’ll prove to me that she is who you say she is.”
Ah. So Jérémie is trying to bribe a Federation agent into ignoring his cargo: me. We’ll see about that. Trafficking of any being, human or otherwise, is illegal on Earth.
“You have no idea what you are asking me to do,” Jérémie says.
I imagine him staring the Federation agent down with his cold dark eyes. I dare Jérémie to use the word “trust” on the guy, because everyone in the known universe knows you can’t trust a Flux. The situation Jérémie’s in is pretty comical, actually. His only hope is the large sum of money he’s offered the man, and beyond that, it all hinges on the man’s conscience. Can he live with himself in the morning?
I’d love to wait this out and see, but it’ll be more fun to help things along.
I shed my twin, take the few seconds to get my head straight, then adjust my voice to sound child-like. Two young girls begging for help should get the official’s attention. We press our faces along the seam of the door.
“Please, mister,” Eden and I say. “Please let us out. I want my mommy.”
“Open that door,” the agent says, all official-like.
Damn, I’m good.
“She is a Gemini,” Jérémie growls at the man. “It is in her nature to be deceptive.”
In my nature...? He’s going to pay for that. One thing I can’t stand is for other races to play the Geminis are deceitful, or mischievous, or deceptive card. It exploits fear. It’s why no one stepped up to help my people when the Flux came in to slaughter them.
“She is also a trained assassin,” Jérémie adds. “She kills your people for money. For fun.”
Half true. I vet the jobs for the big bads. Killing innocent beings isn’t my style. Never has been. If anything, I’ve helped the human race. So he can kiss my ass.
“Please help us,” Eden and I say in our kid voice.
“Open the door,” the man orders. “If you’re telling the truth, we’re both armed. She won’t have a chance to escape.”
All right, well, that just isn’t playing fair is it?
I tear open my blouse, and the buttons on both mine and Eden’s tick across the grated floor as I shoulder free of it. Eden and I bookend the exit, twisting our respective shirts into something resembling a garrote. Jérémie will be forced to open the room at this point, because if he doesn’t, the Federation official will call it in. Not that Jérémie isn’t capable of escaping the planet with war ships on his tail. He’s a damn good pilot.
The hatch’s wheel spins, and the door opens outward, bathing us in artificial light. Outstretched arms enter gun-first. They’re closer to my side, so I act first. I twist my shirt around the man’s wrists—it’s the gullible agent dressed in gray tactical gear—and force his arms skyward just as the plasma shot goes off. I turn with the momentum and nail his jaw with an elbow.
Meanwhile, Eden rolls past us onto the main cargo deck, dropping the useless twist of white fabric on the way. She bounces up in front of Jérémie in our navy lace bra, tiny jean shorts, and bare feet.
Jérémie is dressed for travel in all black gear that isn’t altogether unlike the Federation official’s. Flexible graphene body armor over breathable synthetic fabric, and weapon holsters against each hip. One holster is empty, the gun aimed right at Eden’s chest. She arcs a kick at Jérémie’s extended arm; the weapon flies free and clatters along the grate.
I don’t see what happens next because I have my own battle to fight. Using the binding around the agent’s wrists, I force him down and drive my knee into his soft stomach over and over until my knee and thigh feels bruised. I’m sweating by the time I shove him into an empty rack against the wall. He drops on his butt, and I take the gun he holds loosely in a single hand. One strike across the temple knocks him out.
I dash out of the room, slam the door, and throw the lock. Eden and Jérémie swing punches, and an occasional kick. Blood trickles out of her nose and the corner of her eye, while he looks untouched.
I put the agent’s gun to Jérémie’s temple, forcing him to freeze mid-punch. “Finish that and the lights are going out. Permanently.”
Slowly, Jérémie’s arms come up, palms open. He looks at me through his peripheral. “You won’t kill me.”
Maybe I don’t have it in me to go that far. Yet. But he doesn’t know that. “Trained assassin, remember? A dangerous, deceptive criminal.”
He smirks. “Oh. I remember.”
Jérémie swings at me, forcing my block up and gun to the ground. On his other side, he blocks Eden’s kick. This isn’t anything like outside my car. We’re better prepared this time. And we’ve got him pinned in the middle, doing double duty.
Eden’s head darts one way to avoid a punch that would have surely broke our nose. I block his knee, followed rapidly by a side kick. Then it’s his turn. His arms perform multiple blocks at once without misstep. He manages to to grab each of us by the wrist, and attempts to yank us together. We’ve been though this and done that.
I roll under Eden as she leaps and spins over the top of me.
Then we start all over again. Two against one. He shows no sign of tiring. And unless his stamina took a nosedive in the last five years, we’re well aware that he could do this all night. Blocking. Throwing punches. More blocking. Kicks. He even sneaks an elbow and knee in there.
Eden and I share a look. It’s only a moment, but enough. Jérémie’s gun is behind her, and the agent’s gun is near me. We have to get the Flux in a vulnerable position and up this ante.
Dropping into a crouch, I swing a leg toward Jérémie’s ankles, and spin. He effortlessly leaps over my leg, but I latch onto the gun. Meanwhile, Eden somersaults backwards for hers.
Sensing trouble, Jérémie intensifies his attack on me. My blocks have to be faster. My responses ruthless. And I can’t lose the gun. If I do, he’ll eventually win this fight. And If I end up before the Flux council, I’m dead. That is not an option.
Eden comes to my rescue after an eternity of seconds, resuming her side of the fight. We begin synchronizing our moves. Same punches, same kicks. And finally, leaping for a spinning roundhouse that nails him right in the face.
Jérémie stumbles and falls. By the time he shakes it off, he blinks up at two guns, one for each eye.
He holds up his hands. “Well done.”
Well done? Hell, that was spot on talent. Eden and I have the heaving breathlessness to prove it.
I nod toward the room we’d been trapped in. “Eden, get the door for our old friend here.”
My twin, jaw set and hair in a wild tangle, backs up to the room I’d locked on the Federation agent.
“Inside, Beast,” we say as she opens the door.
To my surprise, he rolls to his feet without a fight. Thumbs a spot of blood off his lip. “This won’t work.”
“Funny,” I say, “it looks to me like it already has.”
I shove him inside, and Eden shuts him in with the unconscious Federation agent.
We lean against the cold gray metal, taking a minute to catch our breath. Practically naked, sweaty, and tired, the last thing I want is to combine our bumps and bruises for double the pain, so I don’t.
“What do you say we make this space trap unusable?” I say to my twin.
She scoops up the white blouse at her feet. “You read my mind.”
Five plasma shots inside the cockpit send sparks flying up from the control panel. Another five for good measure starts a small fire. I leave it; the ship will detect and put the flames out before the blaze gets out of hand.
On the way back through the cargo deck, Eden and I finally pause to merge. She took far more of a beating than I did. Jérémie had obviously held back with me, but if he hadn’t, I’d hate to see how much damage he could really do. Those punches fucking hurt.
I’m an attention whore. I admit it. But walking the pedestrian pathway along the edge of the runway with the remains of my blouse—I had to tie it over my stomach since I’d popped all the buttons—shorts and no shoes makes me stand out in the wrong way. Someone’s going to figure out they’re missing one of their Federation agents. And here I am walking around the space port looking like I’ve just been in a fight. I cleaned up the blood, but I have multiple bruises surfacing from my ankles to my thighs to my cheekbones.
Whatever I decide to do, I have to do it fast. That missing agent assigned to Jérémie’s vessel will be found soon enough, which means Jérémie will be on the loose. I can’t go home, and I doubt I can even stay on planet. Jérémie knew my profession. He lured me out, for fuck’s sake. That means he’s been around a while. Studying my every move.
It’s what the Flux do before going in for their prey. They learn every detail they can so that when and if things go awry, they can readjust the mission with little to no time lost. Jérémie will know how to find me...
A couple practically runs me over on the way by, yanking me out of my thoughts. The woman has her face and one arm buried in a very large travel purse. “Did you transfer money into the credit account?”
The man beside her squints at the screen of his sat-phone. They’re older, both with large, frizzy curls—one blond, one black-haired—going crazy in the evening wind, and they’re both wearing bright neon colors and flip flops.
“Of course you did,” she says, answering her own question before he could even open his mouth. “If it were just a cruise, we’d be penniless, but you made sure we had enough money the second you saw the word ‘casino’ listed on the ‘things to do’ list, didn’t you?”
I take that back. Jérémie will know how to find me...on Earth.
“I better have enough for a spa day, which had better include a full-body massage by a man with more muscles than brains.”
I run after the couple with an idea brewing. “Excuse me. Are you going on a cruise ship? Is it headed off-planet?”
The woman barely gives me an entire glance until she notices her husband halt and turn completely. Her squinty peepers rake over my little bits of clothing.
“Man trouble,” I explain, pulling my blouse together tighter across my cleavage. “More muscles than brains.”
Her back straightens and she blinks wildly, while her husband chuckles behind his hand.
“Let’s just say I’ve earned a little fist-free pampering. So about that cruise...,” I say pointedly. “Please tell me you didn’t waste your money to orbit the Earth, because trust me, that—”
“Off planet,” the man cuts in with a grin.
The woman throws back her shoulders, and hikes a nose in the air. “But you need a ticket.”
Which I can get over in the main terminal if I hurry... Then again, I’m increasing the risk of capture by walking into that building. I’ll have to go about this another way.
The woman sniffs haughtily. “These sorts of trips sell out way in advance.”
I don’t bother holding back my laugh. “Do I look like I need to worry about that?”
“No,” the man says, “no, you sure don’t.”
I tap the end of his bulbous nose on the way by. “No, I sure don’t.”